The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 9: This is not good

I looked at all of it, Christian was not looking at it, he I guess thought that a few seconds was enough to come into terms with reality... I felt sick, just seeing the community obviously destroyed... I looked at it one last time, and then much like Christian I looked away from it.
I heard Aidan speak for this first time, in quite a long time, but it was not to us. I had forgotten that he had a walkie on him, I wanted to grab it and then throw it away, I didn't want to come to terms with the harsh reality that we were put in.
"It's gone... Code blue... We are going to check it out to see if there are any survivors..." Aidan said to whoever was on that line of the walkie... He then looked at us, I knew what he was thinking, he had just said it, we were going to check out if there were survivors.
I felt sick, I could only imagine walking up and seeing Liam and Angela's dead body just sitting on the ground, with the same scars that Angela had told me about, and the same scar that was on Tony's eye.
I could not blame Tony for this... It was realistically not his fault. He had no other choice but to be a part of that group, it was either do that, or die. He did not know what he was getting in to with all of this.
No... There was no one to blame but myself, and the rest of the community I suppose. Much like them, I had put it of like it was nothing. It was just an empty threat by probably a group of a few people...
Or maybe, it was a real threat by a few people and they had only just managed to hit sections of the wall and a few houses. I counted the odds, but they were just not adding up. It made sense what happened to the other community now.
"Aidan... Please, let it be just me and you that go in, I don't want to see the boy with his brother or his sister laying on the ground, that would would scar him for life." Christian said to Aidan. Aidan looked at him and then nodded, and for a few moments I wanted to do the same.
There was that word again, just used in a different manner, scar... It made me feel sick, and my head started to wabble a little bit. Christian looker at me and I looked right back at him, right in his eyes, which was something that I normally would ever do, and I could tell that Christian looked surprised as well.
"No... I want to see, I want to see if they are gone." I said to Christian. He looked at me for a few moments, looking me in the eyes to make sure, that I was sure that I really wanted to be doing that. I nodded to him.
He looked at me for a few moments, and then he nodded back at me, but both he and I knew, it would destroy me if I found Liam's body laying on the ground. I looked at him for a few moments, it was all coming in to terms and he looked back at me.
"Kid... I don't think you want to see something like this, but if you say so we are not going to stop you, this is the end of your training... Just not the ending that you would have liked, you make your own decisions now." He said to me, but I was not paying much attention to what he had said.
My mind was in a different area, I did not know how to respond to it, and I could tell that Christian could see that I was not okay. I looked at the ground for a few more moments, and then I looked at the both of them, I could tell that Aidan did not believe I was ready.
"Ben... Christian is right, they attacked us not too long ago... There are others still alive out there, much like your group our group had people that went outside the walls... I came back with a small group of mine to find my parents with their throats slit." Aidan said to me. I looked at him for a few moments.
I could not imagine what he must have been thinking when he had seen that, but I shook my head not wanting to think about it, but what he had just said just added a whole nother dimension of what I had just been thinking about.
They both could tell that I was thinking about something, because I was paying no attention to what either of them were saying. I got the general idea, I could tell that they did not think I was okay, so I put my thoughts into words.
"Wait... What if like Aidan had said, there were still other's out there, Angela is usually out there right? So what if she is still alive... Like many others, and what if..." I tried thinking to many thoughts at once, and I was not as smart as my brother Liam, so my mind was in over load.
"I get what you are saying... You might be right, Angela might very well be alive out there. We should probably stay back here for a while just in case if that is okay by you Aidan." Christian said to me. I looked at him, and then at Aidan who had been asked the question.
"Yes... That is good by me, I will make sure the group knows that I am okay. I do not have anything to go back to. Kind of like you all..." He said to us. It was harsh, what he had said... But it was a fact, and I knew it. I looked at the walls, a few sections had been torn down, I could hear no screaming, I had a bad feeling about this.
Too be fair, the flames were dying out, we had gone through the night and it was already beginning to get dark by this day. It was the first time that I had ever been out of the walls or not hidden somewhere. It was not as scary as I thought, we only managed to get past 3 or 4 dead.
I could tell for sure that they were much faster in the dark. I would not want to run into a heard at night, there would be no way out of that one. I shook my head, it was good to think of something different, but not quite yet.
I had to at least check and see if anyone was still alive in there. And we had to notify the others once they came back from their own missions about what had happened. We could not just leave them with nothing.
Where were we supposed to go after all of this? I suppose I would leave those sort of questions to Christian. I am sure that Angela is alright, if she was hear during this day, that would be a lot better for sure. I knew that she would take care of Liam.
I remembered what I was thinking about earlier... Maybe Liam was not dead, well first off l, I had to stop thinking that he was. But Angela had told me that there were no kids left after the other community had been attacked.
But even if he was not dead, I did not even want to think about what they would do with him. How they would teach him how to leave, rot it into his brain that it was how life was. Or worse... But I did not even want to think about those thoughts.
"Let's go... I don't want to sit here all day, I have too many thoughts going on in my mind." I said to the both of them. Aidan looked at me and then he nodded, I could tell that Christian was a bit sad when I had said that to him.
It was one of the few times I had ever seen that emotion from him, he told me not to show emotions, because the dead did not show theirs. In a sense he was right, but at the same time, he was wrong. Who would want to live a life with no emotions?
He had probably been thinking that way ever since his wife and his newborn and been torn apart. I could only imagine, I had been the one to finish them... But to see it all unfold, to see his wife tearing open his little child. It made me feel sick even thinking those types of thoughts.
"I'll go first... If I see something, I will tell you all, we don't know if they are still here or not... It doesn't look like it and doesn't sound like it... The fire is about out... But you never know." Aidan said to us. I looked at Christian, he was the leader to me. He just nodded and let Aidan take the lead for us.
We began walking the front gates, there were ladders there, clearly they had climbed up from them, but as well as that, the gates were just hanging wide open... Luckily there were no dead nearby to even notice that.
But what it told me was not good, if the gates were still open, there were not many alive... And even if there were people still alive, they had probably all left or the were sitting inside their houses afraid, probably not even knowing what was going on.
We walked past the gates, the sun was falling right in front of us so it was really hard to see. I put my hand over the sun to see what was all around us. I looked and felt disgusted at what I saw, it was worse than I had thought before.
But it was not as bad as Angela had told me it had been when the gates were slammed down. I had not seen what any of it was like because I was in a storage bin outside of our place, right where my mother had taken me to hide from all of it.
I remember that place fairly well, I remembered eating and drinking, all the while, was silence... Besides the first day, the first day was not as scary as the days after, you might think that it would be because of all of the screaming and all of the dead walking around the storage unit.
It in fact was not scary at all to me, my sister had told me what it was like out there. She had basically trained me to show no fear... Much like Christian was doing by showing none of his emotions.
I saw dead walking all over the streets, not as many nearly as I had heard about the day that it had happened many years ago, but I could still see many dead walking around. I knew that they would not go into the crops though, the dead did not like being able to not see where they were going, that is why Aidans group had chosen to be in the mountains.
It made since, but the problem was for us was they had maybe a 100 or so, we had up to 3000, well we in the past tense I suppose as I looked around to see the community in ruins. There was no one walking around like there usually was on a normal day.
"Let's go to Shannon's we have to see if any of the leaders are alive over there, that is the first place they would have gone." Christian said to us. I looked at him and nodded, if Angela was here they would be at their place, but odds are she wasn't.
Liam would be at Lilly's or his daycare, I wanted to ask Christian to see if the kids were still alive, but I chose not too interrupt him. Besides I did not want to see a heap full of dead little kids sitting in there.
I grabbed my blade as a few of the dead overheard Christian talking and they began walking over to us. I still was not the best with it, I much prefer the gun over the blade, but if we kept being loud it would draw more dead into the community.
What was left of it at least... We had formed a tight little circle, the area I was looking at there was only one coming after me, I looked around to see how many Aidan and Christian had. I saw 2 going after Aidan, but they were split far apart. I saw 3 going after Christian that were close together.
I ran at the one going after me, I needed to help Christian. Odds are he would be fine, but like he had said... There was never a such thing as too safe. I didn't know exactly what he meant by that, but to me that meant to make sure the people around you were as well.
I cut right into the dead guys skull... He fell to the ground and I looked at the guy quickly before I headed over to Christian. The guy, I had seen him before, but much like the lady that Jordan's mom was with, she had a cut on her eye.
I wondered what that could have possibly been. Was that some way of signifying that they were the alphas? Based off of what I was seeing around us, they were right... They certainly were... We were just the omegas... Little puppets.
Who knows how much bigger their community was compared to ours... I shook my head and then I ran over to help Christian. I cut down the last lady, Christian had already taken down the other 2 but the lady was coming right up on him and he had not steaded himself quite yet.
I cut her down, unlike the last guy I had just killed, this lady did not have the scar on her eye. That also could have been because she might have been from outside of the walls. I looked at Christian he nodded to me thankfully and I nodded back to him.
"You think we should close the gate just so no more dead can come in?" I said to Christian. He looked at me for a few moments and then he nodded over to Aidan to get his attention. Aidan had killed his 2 perfectly and he looked to be in no sort of danger.
"Lets close the gates! We can check around the community today and close those as well, works twice as fast if we split apart." Christian said loudly to Aidan. He looked back at Christian and then nodded his understanding. Luckily this time the closest dead was about over a hundred feet away and he had not heard Christian.
Christian and Aidan then walked over and they helped each other shut the gate. I looked at them, I wanted to smile but I could not bring myself to it as my mind quickly flashed to Liam... I wanted to ask Christian if I could split apart and make sure he was okay.
But if I was to go to the daycare and a bunch of the dead were sitting inside of it, I would need Christians help to get out of there. I would just wait and help them check the community house I suppose.
Luckily I recognized the area we were in, it was left of the place that we had left a few days ago. Shannon's place was about a mile away from where we were at right now. It wasn't too far of a walk, it could be worse... But it still would take a solid few minutes to walk over to there.
I looked at Christian, and then I let him take the lead. He began walking and both me and Aidan began following him. Aidan obviously did not know where to go, so he out of all of us would be looking for someone to show him the way.
Aidan looked at the ground sadly the whole way we time we were walking, for a few moments I just wanted to ignore it, but I also really wanted to know what was going on in his head right now. Why did he look more upset than me and Christian?
"Are you good Aidan? I can tell you have something in your head." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments and then he looked away. Christian turned his head for a few moments to see what was going on and then he shook his head for me to be quiet.
Clearly Christian also noticed that Aidan was not okay... I was a bit worried about him, but I knew he should not be the main thing that I should be worried about. I suppose if he did not want to talk though, I would not force him into it.
But surprisingly, after a few more moments of all of us just walking and being quiet, he finally decided to open up to us. Christian even opened up to me after I had finished the deed of killing his wife and child, a deed that he was grateful of me for.
"I remember, when I was around your age... Right when all of this first started happening. I remember playing in the park... My parents said they would come and get me by the time the sun set but they never did." He said to me. I looked at him. I could understand why he was thinking about those times.
"I had heard on the news all day about what was going on, but my parents still let me play there. But once it was starting to get dark they never came to get me." Aidan said to me. I looked at him sadly, I did not even want to think about what was about to happen next.
Christian looked at him the moment he said something about his parents and he as well lowered his head. We kept on walking in silence for a few more moments, by now we were about halfway to the meeting house.
"Did you find your parents dead near the park or something?" I asked him. He looked at me for a few moments but then he shook his head. It confused me for a bit, but then I remembered he had told me earlier that his parents had been killed when the other group had attacked them.
"No... They were fine, locked up in their house... Scared to come and get me. I was just remembering my neighborhood looked just like this one, it was not a rich neighborhood, but it certainly was not the ghetto." He said to us. I looked at him a bit confused what he had meant by the ghetto... I had never heard that word before.
"The ghetto... It's kind of like where all of the poor people used to live, lots of gangs and all that... But anyways... I went to go check in my friends place that was not far from the park." He said to me. It made sense now I suppose, ghetto did not sound like a very good word to me.
But I could tell by the look on Aidan's face that this was the part of the story where it would take a turn for the worse. I looked at him a bit sadly, I had never really had a best friend, besides the girl I used to really like. Molly was her name...
I felt betrayed and I thought of her as dead to me, but the way the story was turning for him seemed to be that his best friend was actually going to be found dead, well as one of the dead at least...
People did not like to think of them as dead, a lot of people had hope that maybe one day there would be a cure... But it did not make sense to me how you could bring back a guy with no legs and no intestines back to life... It seemed like there would be no cure.
I looked at Aidan and nodded to him to let him know that I was still paying attention to him, I just sometimes think too many thoughts in my head. Christian stopped as quickly and then I head his blade stab into one of the dead. Then we kept on walking.
"The first day, I walked into a house, much like the one one we just went past over there." He said to me, nodding a long ways away at a house that I probably would not be able to see since we were walking down a bit of a hill.
"They were dead weren't they?" I asked him. He looked at me and then nodded sadly... I felt bad for him, but I was not too sure why he was so emotional, maybe he was just thinking about the first time he had seen one of the dead... He probably had no idea what it was.
"Yes... But the worst part was not that... I saw my best friend, he was eating apart his baby brother... I can never forget that... I just ran, I didn't go home, it took me a few days to go back there." He said to me. As soon as he said it I looked at Christian, it was about the same thing that Christian had seen.
Christian did not say anything about it, but I could tell he was thinking the exact same thing that I was, he had his head to the ground and his hands in his pockets... I thought it best to not say anything about it though. As we kept on walking to the meeting house.
The rest of the way there was nothing but silence... I felt bad about it, I was lucky that I had not gone through any of what they had, but I had seen the dead, and my sister had told me what she had seen, I had a picture painted in my mind of what it must have been like.
We kept on walking, we were near the end of the meeting place. I looked over and saw Jordan's place. I looked at it sadly, he was not a good friend by any means when I was younger. But he used to be one of my old friends, and he was sort of like a friend to me now.
Right as I was about to look away I saw something and held Christian to a stop and pointed over and the house that I was looking at. He looked at me a bit confused as to why I had stopped him, and then he realized what it was.
Right then, I saw the door of the house open and out popped Jordan, he looked scared and confused. But at the same time he looked happy to see our faces. I looked at Jordan and nodded, I was happy as well, at least we knew that there was still someone alive in the community...
We could have just left it at that, and just walked away... We could have just joined the other group that was with us. It gave me hope, Angela was more than likely still alive out there somewhere, but Liam could have been hiding with Lilly at their place.
Aidan pulled out his gun, but I stopped him. He could tell right away that it was not one of those people because there was no scar on his eye. He put his gun down and Jordan walked over to us.
"What the hell happened? Who's this guy? I just came back tonight with the lady I was with and we found the place in ruins... I knew it was true! My mother is still alive out there..." He said to us. I looked at him, he was just as confused as us. I had a feeling that his mother was probably hanging from a tree like the other guy somewhere else and no one had found them quite yet.
"We are just as confused as you... But we got attacked, we found another community and then we found one of the guys that was planning on attacking us and we heard his walkie about them attacking someone and we came hear." Christian said to him. Jordan looked at Aidan still not trusting him and then he nodded.
"We are about to go to you guys meeting house. Have you gone there yet?" Aidan asked Jordan. Jordan looked at him and then he shook his head at Aidan.
"No... I was with another girl, me and her split apart to see what had happened and to see if anyone was still out here... I just came here first." Jordan said to us. I looked at him and then nodded my understanding, it is what I wanted to do originally.
"Well we are about to head over to the meeting place to see if any of the leaders are still alive... Do you want to come with us?" I said to him. He looked at me for a few seconds and then he nodded to me.
Once Christian was sure that we were all okay, we kept on walking over to it. We were less than a quarter of a mile away when we had met Jordan, but we were very close now, maybe less than 5 minutes away.
I was still afraid that there would not be anyone left, Jordan had not been here when the attack had happened. If he had he would probably have been one of the first ones to die. He was brave and he would have tried to save the lives of many others.
Jordan and Aidan were both looking at the ground sadly now. I knew why both of them were so I did not ask them what was going on. Jordan was going to lose his mother and his father, unless his father was outside the walls which could be a possibility as well.
I then saw the meeting house from just in the corner over the edge of the crops, Christian began walking at almost a jogging pace now that we were close to being over there now. We began speeding up, which is probably what we should have done in the first place.
Right as we got around the corner I saw the house, and all that was around it and I felt like I was about to vomit. Jordan looked at it all sadly and Aidan and Christian both showed no emotions which was not surprising from Christian.
I saw all of them, all of the dead bodies. I could not tell who they were from over there, but I could tell... It was at least most of the council. I looked at the ground sadly... But at the last moment I saw someone that was sitting beside the dead bodies she was also staring at the ground.
I recognized the lady to be Shannon, I felt bad for her as well. That was her council, I knew that she was close to each and every single one of them. She was still alive, I saw all the gunshots on the bodies... She had clearly seen it all unfold.
Clearly the were mocking her... They made her whole community get destroyed while all of it unfolded. Jordan was the first one to speak out of all of us, he finally decided to break the silence.
"Oh no... This is not good..."